At the end of last month I wrote a blog post about “Mastering Client Meetings”. I went on to create a LinkedIn poll asking about what percentage of your client base you’ve met face to face and I thought the results (even from a small sample group) were interesting.
The majority (71% of respondents) had meet with at least 75% of their clients. Only 8% had met less than 25% of their client base. The comments shared showed a mix of thoughts. Going from Kenny McAllister who said “If they won’t/can’t meet me (or offer a meeting with a local rep of the client firm, if recruitment is being driven from overseas), I can’t recruit for them. It’s really that simple. Probably a bit ‘old school’, but it’s worked for me over the years!” to Matthew Goldstraw with the polar opposite response of “I’ve never met with a client face-to-face. Yes in previous roles clients have been half way round the world – but even in my current role when they are only a hop, skip and a drive from me in Wales I still do everything over the phone. It works; how well it would work if I met with clients I do not know – it’s not my decision though!” Kenny is MD of his own business and has 20 years recruitment experience whilst Matthew is employed as Business Developer for a nursing & care recruitment agency and is obviously working to company procedure.
Michelle Ansell (Director of a Contact Centre Recruitment Consultancy) sits somewhere in the middle saying: “We try to meet with every client, it may not be possible at the start of every relationship but if this is the case we would certainly try and arrange for when we can. In our experience face to face meetings really enhance relationships and a successful recruitment outcome.”
I tend to agree with the sentiments of a few other respondents who say “Personal contact is the best way to make lasting business relationships” and “You can’t ask someone to work for someone you haven’t met, surely?”
I’m certainly of the mind that long term relationships benefit from face to face contact. However, it’d be remiss of me not to point out that I’ve got some clients that I’ve worked with for in excess of 10 years but have only met in the past couple of years… Certainly face to face contact doesn’t appear to be essential in every case!
(PS this is was the funny little video clip from the guys at JuiceTDP which set me off on this subject)
